Study says one in ten Americans has buzzing in the ear or tinnitus

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Do you have that sometimes irritating ringing in your ears? If so, then perhaps you’re one in every ten Americans that has persistent buzzing or ringing in the ears, or sometimes in the head. It’s called tinnitus. Surprisingly, scientists have been studying it, and the goals are to find out its prevalence in the country, and how to avoid it.

As published by NPR, the research was written for the journal JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. Ear surgeon Harrison Lin of the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, and one of the three authors of the study, has spoken with the online publication, and he revealed that tinnitus is connected with hearing loss.

When someone loses the ability to hear a certain range of sound, their brain might “chime in” with its own iteration. It is similar to a soldier who can still feel pain in the limb that they’ve lost. Interestingly, the study also has found that people with tinnitus rarely talk about it with their doctors.

Buzzing in the ear of Americans

The team looked at the national survey of more than seventy-five thousand people, and they found that about twenty-seven percent confirmed experiencing its symptoms for more than fifteen years. Meanwhile, over a third–or about thirty-six percent–said they were experiencing symptoms nearly constant.

In a press release for the study, the study team revealed that higher rates of tinnitus were reported in those with consistent exposure to loud noises, either at work or during recreational time. In addition, they’ve also found a link between it and the years of exposure to deafening work.

For the subjective severity, the team has found that seven point two percent reported their tinnitus as “a big or a very big problem,” while forty-two percent said it is “a small problem.” Only forty-nine percent had discussed their tinnitus with their doctors.

For treatments, Lin said that hearing aids work, also psychotherapy. The latter is being promoted by their national professional society, he said, because it’s about changing the way affected people think about tinnitus.

The study is titled “Prevalence, Severity, Exposures, and Treatment Patterns of Tinnitus in the United States,” and it’s an online-first publication accessible via the JAMA website.

With greater exposure to wireless radiation, more people are becoming hypersensitive. The United States is behind other countries in recognizing this problem. Check out the Parents For Safe Technology website which is an excellent resource on this issue.

EM radiation is not a primary cause of tinnitus. Nor is it an especially common one, given that the levels of EM radiation need to be so high to produce that as a symptom that other physical problems would manifest first.

In fact, the study you cited has been disproved by several CDC research groups.

Tinnitus is caused by damage to the auditory system. That can happen more often due to excess noise. It is also a common side-effect to antidepressants and even anti-psychotics. It can be caused by inflammatory processes as well (such as infection), which are exacerbated by stress or even a lack of sleep.

Please, don’t push a discredited agenda. Pseudoscientific nonsense doesn’t belong in medicine, nor in a place where people might be looking for facts.

I totally know what causes my tinnitus. I have four compressed vertebrates and when I liift heavy items so the vertebrates are out of alignment the tone and volume changes. By manipulating my back the noise level changes sometimes totally going away. The injury was the result of a toboggan accident in 1968

Please, not another disorder for which they can come up with no cure, but suggest psychotherapy. That’s a cop out and an insult that suggests it’s “all in your head”. Being married to a man who has been suffering from tinnitus with hearing loss and hyperacousis for 25 years, I can guarantee it is not!